I’ve always enjoyed photographs. I love looking back at my own family photos, and even more so now that I can compare my daughter’s baby photos to my own. We have the exact same nose! But the one thing that’s missing from those grainy old polaroids is the date… it would be nice to know how old I was in those images. So I knew I wanted to do some sort of monthly documentation of my daughter’s early years, and when I saw these script letters on CraftCuts.com I knew they would be perfect for the project. Add some faux flowers and a little coffee (yes to use in the project, not to drink. Well, I drank some too haha) and you have the cutest coffee stained wood milestone markers you’ve ever seen!
I’ve worked with CraftCuts before, so I knew that their wooden letters and numbers would work great for this particular project. And you can choose from a ton of different fonts, so you can really customize them and make them your own. So let’s get started! Here’s what you’ll need:
- Wooden numbers and the word “months”
- Coffee
- Paintbrush
- Hot glue gun
- Pliers or old scissors
- Assorted artificial flowers
Begin by painting the letters and numbers with coffee. If you’d like a darker color, boil the coffee down a bit to make it more concentrated . You can also do a couple of coats to build up the color. I love this technique because it’s super cheap and you don’t have to deal with smelly, tough-to-clean oil based stains.
Let the coffee stained wood dry completely. Next, cut your florals apart so you have lots of small flowers and leaves to work with.
Use your hot glue gun to attach flowers and leaves to each number and to the word “months.” I found that adding them along the thicker, vertical parts of the numbers generally worked best. Trim off any hot glue strings, and you’re finished!
That was the easy part… now you have to try to get your child to pose and smile for the camera! And this probably goes without saying, but never leave your baby unattended with these milestone markers… these are props, not toys.
Tips for getting your kiddo to smile or at least look at the camera: put a toy on your head, buy a phone case with a bold black and white pattern, tickle them with a clean feather duster, etc. Hope you enjoyed my tutorial on how to make coffee stained wood milestone markers! Looking for other ways to use wooden letters in your home? Here are a couple of ideas.
This post was created in partnership with CraftCuts.
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